Review(s): DVD Law & Order Criminal Intent - The Second Year
Everything comes together in this season
To me this is the season of Law & Order Criminal Intent where the show came into its own. I think this is where the Holmes and Watson-like partnership of Goren and Eames really began to gel.
Kathryn Erbe is great as Detective Alexandra Eames, Goren's partner, who is the no-nonsense fact gathering detective, seemingly content to stay in the limelight. D'Onofrio plays Robert Goren the "Renaissance Man Detective/Psychologist" in a way that is not only believable but intriguing. I can't think of another actor who could pull off such a role and not have it come across as somewhat silly, such as when Adam West as Batman used to solve those riddles from the Riddler by making huge nonsensical leaps in logic.
Vincent D'Onofrio, however, is impossibly appealing in the role. This eclectic, slightly geeky, vaguely sociopathic detective steals every scene, smashing the old macho-detective stereotype to pieces with his odd mumbling and awkward gestures. Unlike most TV actors, D'Onofrio dares to be extremely weird. He's sneaky, playing the naive witness in order to mention inadmissible evidence on the stand, and spilling coffee on his notes on purpose to catch his suspect off guard. He smiles at completely inappropriate moments. He delights in toying with arrogant men, but goes out of his way to be sensitive to old ladies and children. Just when he's starting to show some swagger, he leaps out the door, blurting, "I need to use my most important investigative tool: my library card!" Despite the breakneck pace of the series, D'Onofrio takes up long blocks of screen time by just thinking. He pauses, mid-sentence. He looks around the room and wrinkles up his face. We wonder what it is he could possibly be pondering. Unlike the other two "Law and Order" shows, we already know who committed the crime. Somehow, the fun comes from watching D'Onofrio manipulate his way to the truth.
As for individual episodes, "Anti-Thesis" was probably the best episode of the season. The one-on-one between Goren and arch-criminal Nicole Wallace is outstanding as she is one of the rare villains to successfully turn the tables on Goren. Nicole shows up again in another excellent episode "A Person of Interest", which happens to be the season finale. In it, Detective Goren is accused of instigating the supposed suicide of a murder suspect, but the plot unravels, as many fine CI plots do, to reveal a completely different, more sinister suspect - Nicole. If anything, this episode made me respect Nicole even more, for her calculating and so-far infallible shrewdness, providing the perfect foil for Goren. The look on Goren's face when he first thought that Croyden's death was his fault was very poignant. This is really the only episode in which Goren's confidence in his perceptions is truly shaken, and it's heartbreaking to watch. If Goren is Sherlock Holmes, Nicole is truly his Moriarty.
Another great episode that was bizarre even by this series' standards was "Cold Comfort". An old senator dies and his son and daughter are fighting over his body. The son wants him buried according to the father's wishes. The daughter wants him cryogenically frozen so they can be together in years to come. So far, so bizarre. She has the legal paperwork, so it looks like she's winning. Unfortunately for her a quick trip to the bathroom results in a knife to the upper thigh and a very bloody death. Then things get complicated. Who did it and why? The answers are convoluted but clever and as usual Goran and Eames unravel the story piece by piece and are led to a powerful man who it seems will stop at nothing for his family. It turns out that the late senator had suffered from early onset Alzheimer's, but miraculously recovered, and the previously mentioned powerful man has a son suffering from the very same disease. The daughter's plans for freezing the senator would have denied the powerful man the ability to carve up the dead senator's brain and have it studied in hopes of finding a cure for his son. It's not a series classic, but it does keep you guessing.
In summary, this is probably the best season of Law & Order CI, and I highly recommend it.
French subtitle missing....
Law & Order / What order ? as the First year / the Third year have both French subtitles, the Second year have not...
Who could explain this,in english,to a french ?
Guillaume, from Hue - Viet Nam
The best season of all
Of the five and a bit seasons that Law & Order: Criminal Intent has run for, Season 2 is arguably the best season. Every episode is compelling, and there is none of the heaviness that has dragged down the quality level of some episodes in later seasons.
We see Vincent D'Onofrio and Kathryn Erbe at their prime in this second season, attacking the storylines with vigour and enthusiasm. This is the season that cemented Detectives Bobby Goren and Alex Eames as one of the best TV cop partnerships ever.
The episodes are all excellent. Particular favourites are 'Best Defense';
'The Pilgrim'; 'Con-Text'; 'See Me' and 'Probability'.
'Best Defense' has the detectives investigating attempts on the life of one of ADA Ron Carver's colleagues, and as they dig, they discover the man's wife may be looking to upgrade from her 'below-average' prosecutor husband. But as always, nothing is as it seems, and the case takes the detectives into dangerous territory and has them once again butting heads with Carver.
'The Pilgrim' has Goren and Eames on the search for a pair of potential suicide bombers, and in a race against time to prevent a massive tragedy.
'Con-Text' pits Goren against a young man who has had his mind warped by a self-help guru. And the big question is, did he murder his father and brother on his own, or was he manipulated into it?
'See Me' deals with schizophrenics, a subject that is close to home for Goren. Once again, as in the season 1 episode 'The Faithful', we are given a look at Goren's skill in dealing with the mentally ill.
'Probability' pits Goren against a wily killer, and puts his skills for picking out obscure patterns to the test like never before.
And on top of all the other wonderful episodes in Season 2, this is also the season that introduces Goren's hard-to-kill nemesis, the vicious Nicole Wallace. We first see her in 'Anti-Thesis' (the episode that gives us Goren's much-discussed middle initial 'O', and his date of birth), and again at the end of the season in 'A Person of Interest', where we see Goren being the one who is manipulated for once.
Season 2 is by far the best season yet of Criminal Intent, although season 6 is proving to be well worth the wait.
Related DVD's Law & Order Criminal Intent - The Second Year
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